Education Blog

Here are two data points that I pulled from the Texas Education Agency’s report about the graduation rate for students in the class that was to finish in the 2010-2011 school year. As this report indicates, the number of Texans finishing in four years reached its all-time high with this class of students.

*Out of 319,588 students in the class of 2011 Grade 9 cohort, 85.9 percent graduated. The graduation rate for the class of 2011 was 1.6 percentage points higher than the rate for the class of 2010. An additional 6.2 percent of students in the class of 2011 continued in high school the fall after their anticipated graduation date, and 1.1 percent received GEDs.

Does this mean we are out of trouble? No, there are other indices that suggest too few of our high school students are really ready for college-level work, even if they are on a path to college. But this data does suggest that higher standards are not necessarily driving tons of students to leave school.

In fact, the opposite is true. This class with the highest graduation rate was the first in Texas to complete four years of high school under the more rigorous 4 by 4 system, which requires high school students to take four units of math, science, English and social studies. If this system is so onerous, as some opponents who are trying to roll it back claim, why is it that the trend line for graduation rates is going up, not down?

It isn’t that all of these students are taking the easiest way out, either. TEA reports that about 82 percent of the 2011 graduates participated in one of the two most rigorous pathways to graduation.

Again, there are a number of indices that should cause us to worry. But these graduation trend lines are going in the right direction at the same time that high school has gotten more rigorous.

*A total of 21,813 students in the class of 2011 Grade 9 cohort dropped out. Of these, 67.5 percent dropped out in the third or fourth year of the cohort. Of students who dropped out in the fourth year (2010-11), more than half (54.8%) had not reached Grade 12.

We are losing students largely in the last two years of high school. Maybe that’s where counselors need to be putting a greater focus. Are they so far behind that they have no chance by then?

That’s possible, given the fact students who struggle leaving middle school have a hard time catching up in high school. This data suggests legislators should go back to the idea Florence Shapiro had in the last Legislature with her bill that would have led to more focus on students making the transition from middle school to high school.

Now, finally, here’s an important explanation to consider from the TEA’s report:

*The U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the federal entity with primary responsibility for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the United States. In 2003, the 78th Texas Legislature passed legislation requiring that dropout rates be computed according to the NCES dropout definition. Districts began collecting data consistent with the NCES definition in the 2005-06 school year. A dropout is a student who is enrolled in public school in Grades 7-12, does not return to public school the following fall, is not expelled, and does not: graduate, receive a GED, continue school outside the public school system, begin college, or die.

In other words, the TEA uses the same definition that the federal government uses. The standard the feds came up with was a result of a long process involving the nation’s governors so that graduation rates are not fungible. If this data is not acceptable, then it’s not acceptable for many states.

Later, I will get into the data about male and female graduation rates. For now, I wanted to point out that higher standards are evidently not having such a negative effect on our schools.